Italy Rome city
council warns evicted gipsies/Roma:
"Accept relocation or we may have to take your children"

Journalist Paolo
Brogi posted a document on his blog on 29 November 2011 that
is indicative of how activities are being enacted in Rome in
the framework of the Roma "emergency", which has included
large-scale evictions and relocation in isolated settlements
that are distant from the city centre. Professor Francesco Pompeo
of Rome's third university (Roma Tre), whose "Observatory
on racism" has conducted research into the capital's Roma
camps, notes that Rome city council "makes nomads sign a
form whereby they are forced to accept accommodation that the
council offers them, or they will risk having their children
taken from them".

Researchers were handed the form by a woman who received it from
local police officers during an eviction in via Candoni in the
Canneto neighbourhood and had refused the city council's offer.
The form has three boxes that may be ticked.

The first is next to the statement

"I accept the offer for housing assistance that I have just
been proposed, making myself immediately available to be accompanied,
alongisde my underage children, to the place that will be made
available by Rome city council".

The second one states

"I refuse the assistance offered by Rome city council and
will make different arrangements".

Its corollary is the third box,

"I confirm that I have been informed that if I will not
be able to guarantee my underage children a healthy and safe
dwelling place and sufficient economic resources to ensure their
personal needs, the Public Authority, pursuant to article 403
of the civil code, will have to intervene through the bodies
for the protection of children, to immediately place them in
a safe location, until it will be possible to provide for their
protection in a definitive manner".

Professor Pompeo viewed it as an "evident [case of] intimidation"
through "strong psychological pressure channelled through
values like the family and children", and by using article
403 that is "meant for the protection of children",
but is "turned into a scarecrow that is waved for a different
purpose, namely, eviction". He also noted that Rome city
council has been trying to present an "image of efficiency
and control over the situation of Roma people in Rome" to
garner support, whereas "the information collected by independent
observers bear witness to a very different situation" in
spite of "enormous resources made available to the special
commissioner" amounting to 30m euros, "without many
verifiable results".

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